posted
First off, Andrew, if you still lurk around here, get out. Thanks.
So tomorrow night, I'm DMing my first game (4e). My players are going to discuss and tweak their characters (most of them already have an idea of what they're going to do) and I've planned a one-off adventure that I'm hoping will nicely test the party's capabilities. Below is an outline of the session I have planned. If it runs into a second session, that's fine with me. I know there are quite a few experienced D&D players here and I'm hoping for some feedback. General advice is also welcome. I've only been playing for about a year total, so don't hold back something you think might be obvious. Thanks in advance!
(The party here are your basic adventurers for hire)
1. The party is on the way to a job in a small village near the Green Feather to negotiate a job. The job involves ridding the area of a small band of goblins that has been preying on farms. They have with them standard Adventurer’s Kits, as well as 2 healing potions.
2. They should be heading south, but the road is taking them west. It’s growing dark, and it begins to rain.
3. Thoroughly lost, they crest a hill, and spot an inn at a distance. It sits on a crossroads, and to the west you can just see swamp lands that indicate they are closer to the Green Feather than they should be. Taking the eastern road should put them back on track, but they are now at least several hours out of your way. The road they are on ends at the intersection.
4. If they take the eastern road, they are ambushed in waves after setting up camp, or when they try to pass the rockslide. (backup 1)
5. If they take the western road, they are attacked by the entire encounter at once, and must flee, or are likely killed. (backup 2)
6. If they enter the inn, they open the door to find three figures standing over two tables that have been pushed together. There is a fourth body lying still on the table. The room is lit by a large fireplace at the far end of the room. One figure is holding a wicked looking knife, and all of them are covered in blood.
7. The body on the table is a dwarf, named Bodrik, in plate armor, and in bad condition. The players can attempt to heal the dwarf with a potion, a healing spell, or a heal check of DC 15. Whichever method they use, he is restored to bloodied value, but not further. If they heal him, he awakens and warns them of an approaching goblin band.
8. The man and his daughter, (Lorn and Lia) are the owners and operators of the tavern/inn. They explain that they were trying to tend to the dwarf, and they beg the players to stay and help them against the goblins. If pressed, they will offer up to 200gp in payment.
9. There is also a female Shifter named Rain, who is a hunter (seeking a white buck) staying the night. She intends to leave, and recommends to Lorn that he and his daughter do the same, but the inn is all they have. The players can pay her 100gp to stay and fight. She can be bartered down to 50 through a diplomacy check of 15 or shamed into the lowered price through an intimidation check of 15. In combat, Rain will flee if possible when her life is reduced to 7 or below.
10. Bodrik (if he lives) will intend to stay and help Lorn and Lia defend their inn.
11. The goblins attack in waves. If pushed into the fire, a goblin will take 2d6 fire damage and 5 ongoing, but this scatters the fire, and the room is in low light. If attempted again, it deals 2d4 fire damage. Non-minion goblins will attempt to drag off Lia. If the players rescue her, she will flee upstairs.
12. The final wave is the hexer and the hobgoblin.
13. If the players survive the encounter, they can take the heads of the hexxer, the hobgoblin, or both, and continue on the eastern road, where they will reach their destination. If they claimed the goblin heads, the village will reward them with 150gp.
posted
It strikes me as a bit harsh that the NPCs take a full share of the XP? Shouldn't they at least get something for using non combat skills to further their battle against the goblins? Even if it makes the actual fighting a bit easier.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I have a few thoughts off the top of my head, as someone who recently got back into being a tabletop DM with 4E.
If no one has a D&DI subscription, get the errata. For example, the Stealth rules were completely rewritten in 2008.
Don't bank on the PCs getting lost. I would expect the PCs to ask for Nature, Perception, History, or maybe even Dungeoneering checks to figure out where they are in relation to where they want to be. I'd grant whatever check is appropriate and allow the party to not be lost if the check is successful. If navigation is important for plot reasons, make it a skill challenge (but make sure you're up to date on the skill challenge errata, which rewrote the math).
Don't assume the PCs will be ambushed. If they aren't making active Perception checks, at least compare the goblins' Stealth rolls to the PCs' passive Perception scores.
Don't assume the PCs will flee if they meet the whole encounter.
Why can't the PCs (or anyone) heal the dwarf above his bloodied value? I don't think setting this limit buys you anything; I would just stick to the normal Heal rules. A Heal check to perform first aid allows the target to spend a healing surge; you could say that this is the dwarf's last surge of the day, and any healing the PCs want to give him above that will force them to use healing potions. Depending on the class mix, they might be able to juggle their healing powers (some do confer modest healing without a surge) to give him a little more, but the main source of healing for the surgeless dwarf will still be the healing potions -- if the PCs want to give him any. That sets up an interesting choice between expending their resources to help the dwarf or keeping them for themselves.
Will the PCs have time for short rests between waves? Between every wave, or only after wave 2 or 3? This decision will have a big effect on the difficulty.
The waves are pretty small. How big is this party?
Added: My main comment is that if you're going to offer choices to the PCs, you should do your best to make sure that none or very few of those choices are dead ends. If the point of your adventure is for the PCs to defend the inn, why not just have them start at the inn instead of offering them choices you'd prefer they didn't take? If you want to have the choices, then make them meaningful in some way -- e.g. allow them to spy on the goblin band with successful Stealth checks, so when they do defend the inn, they know what they'll be fighting.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I remember a funny comment from DMoTR where tracking was a useless skill for a ranger to invest in as any score in trying to determine which way to go for the DM's railroading story goes will always succeed.
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posted
Ricree, my intent was to count both the dwarf and the shifter together as one share, assuming the PCs can gain the help of both. I'm not planning on counting the inkeepers. While they'll be part of the encounter, they won't be very useful at all.
Twinky, thanks very much for the thoughts. To answer a couple of your questions, my party is five players. My XP budget makes this roughly a level 4 encounter (I'm counting the NPCs here, but sort of fudging things.) My intent was to introduce new waves as fast as I thought the party could handle them. I was actually worried about overwhelming them. I might make the first wave bigger though.
I really like your thoughts on healing the dwarf and possibly allowing them to spy on the goblin band. I'm going to work those in to my plans.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Don't bank on the PCs getting lost. I would expect the PCs to ask for Nature, Perception, History, or maybe even Dungeoneering checks to figure out where they are in relation to where they want to be. I'd grant whatever check is appropriate and allow the party to not be lost if the check is successful. If navigation is important for plot reasons, make it a skill challenge (but make sure you're up to date on the skill challenge errata, which rewrote the math).
As far as this goes, my intent is to have the campaign be episodic (or at least start that way) with the episodes lasting 1-2 sessions. This episode opens up with them being lost. If they want to make a check to figure out where they are right off the bat, I don't think that'll spoil the story though.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
My only advice is similar to Raja's, in that you should prepare for the possibility that the party will not go where you want them to go.
That, to me, is one of the great things about D&D -- literally any choice is possible and will be incorporated into the game. Of course, like in real life, if you do something really stupid you'll get killed.
Which isn't to say that you aren't already aware of that and prepared for it.
I know many times in the tabletop games we (the party) would choose a (metaphorical) path that the DM never thought we would. Adjusting on the fly to those scenarios are one of the things that makes a great DM.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
There is a thin line between Rail Roading an adventure and keeping it on track. Why have the Inn at a Crossroads if you don't want them going different directions? Have it at the only spring or shrine in two hours walk.
I once set an adventure in the lower planes, fire and death and chaos everywhere but through this LN dungeon (based off of Chinese mythology and the magic square.).
It took me hours to convince the party that traipsing all over the lower planes was a waste of time, energy and Hp.
You can lead a party to water, but you can't make them drink. The choices are, drown them in the river, or be prepared with sandwiches.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:There is a thin line between Rail Roading an adventure and keeping it on track. Why have the Inn at a Crossroads if you don't want them going different directions?
I think I wanted the inn at the crossroads to provide obvious options to the players. At this point in the game, not railroading is a bigger concern to me than keeping them on track, since I haven't yet established an over-arching story.
I've adopted Twinky's idea of allowing the players a chance to spy on the goblins, if they take that path. Perhaps I need to make the other option more robust. Maybe if the players take the eastern road, they will encounter the inkeepers as they flee the goblins...
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I find that introductory adventures are usually best to start out with a situation wherein the players don't have many options (rather, they have options on how to complete the adventure, but not options on running away from it) and have the adventure end with them acquiring the ability to leave or do whatever. Once they've completed at least one session you'll have a better idea of who the players are, what they are likely to do and how to prepare for it.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I know my players would be just as likely to kill the dwarf and take his armor (maybe by pretending to have an accident while healing him) rather than do anything else with him.
As for rail roading, it's difficult to NOT railroad the first session. That's just kind of how it goes. The way I prepare for normal sessions is by creating a loose framework of a few paths I think my characters might take and having them all plausibly lead to the same place. The trick to good DMing is railroading players without them knowing they are being railroaded. All in all it depends on the group.
On the topic of XP I hate calculating it. It's a pain, takes up time and is immersion shattering. I level my players up on a session basis, 1-2 2-3 take one session, 3-4 takes two, 4-5 takes three, something like that. Maybe if the players do something monumental in a way I wasn't expecting I'll outright reward them with a level up right there. Again, it's up to you and your group. I find leveling is PAINFULLY slow in 4E for a group that has 1-2 encounters per session, like mine.
Oh, and on another note if my party ran into the whole mess of goblins (the encounter the party is expected to run from) you can rest assured they would crack their backs and "off the goblins like the bitches they are." Just to repeat everyone else more, expect the party to do exactly what you didn't prepare.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
Well, the session went pretty well, all things considered. I had to lead them around a bit; in the future I'll need to be better about giving them clues to work with.
We cut things off in the middle of the attack on the inn which I didn't really want to do, but it seemed to work pretty well as a dramatic pause. We'll see how things turn out next week.
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posted
Just finishing up a lvl 3-7 campaign myself. Probably starting a 12-18 campaign next week, I'm pretty stoked, but I also miss just playing on occasion. Some of these tips are pretty good.
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posted
Incidentally, twinky, I think you were right about the waves being small. I ended up upping the second wave, which is where I left off.
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posted
One thing to keep in mind with 4th edition is that unless a monster is an elite or a solo, encounters tend to be more fun with multiple enemies, because the combat roles are so crucial to variety.
Assuming you have a relatively balanced party, you want to give everyone something important to do, and the best and easiest way to do that is have a variety of enemies for the party to focus their specialties on.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Remember the best way to keep a party on the rails is to place obvious landmines on either side of the tracks.
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Blayne Bradley
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Although in the campaign I tried to get started I was pretty clever to getting the campaign actually started, they got into a fight with each within a tavern that ended up setting fire to the place.
So I got them arrested by the town guard who subdued them effortlessly, and had them thrown in jail, released when my GMPC quest giver offered them a deal to do a quest for the Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan they could walk free, although followed and supervised by the Wizard.
I more or less followed the TV Tropes guide on GMPC's or was planning to had we got it going regularly so that he would more or less just stand back and let them handle the action participating only in a way a wizard appropriate to the party would normally participate.
The point of making a GMPC a bit higher level is not because I have an attachment to the character but because plotwise I don't trust the newbie players who are more typically hack and slash to not kill him out of spite.
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I tend to feel that "good" GMs have the party "on rails" as little as possible. Though it should also be noted that good players don't tend to send things spinning wildly off course because they stay in character.
I once had a session that involved players coming to the aid of a captain whose ship had been capsized by a water elemental. The players spend about 45 minutes fighting the elemental and two hours working out how to right the ship. It wasn't really what I had intended for the adventure, but the players enjoyed it, so I was happy to run with it.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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I had to at least get the adventure STARTED at the least!
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I tend to feel that "good" GMs have the party "on rails" as little as possible. Though it should also be noted that good players don't tend to send things spinning wildly off course because they stay in character.
I once had a session that involved players coming to the aid of a captain whose ship had been capsized by a water elemental. The players spend about 45 minutes fighting the elemental and two hours working out how to right the ship. It wasn't really what I had intended for the adventure, but the players enjoyed it, so I was happy to run with it.
Reminds me of my previous campaign where the adventurers had to descend into a pit 50 feet deep by chains covered in blood dripping from the chamber above. Two of them slipped and fell into the pool at the bottom, the rest of them landed upright. They quickly dispatched the enemies in the room, and then spent two hours figuring out how to get back out of the room. They seemed to enjoy that much more than fighting the enemies.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Blayne, Was your wizard also part dragon?
Nope, my wizards are always elves. And why does this matter? Its very rude, explain yourself.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I follow the below guide.
quote:Sometimes, a Game Master doesn't have enough players to run a decent game. Or else, he just wants to have his cake and eat it too. Either way, he stats out an important NPC to travel with the party and fill any missing roles no one else wants to play. It's almost like the GM has a Player Character of his own, thus this concept has come to be known as the GMPC.
Admittedly, this kind of character can be done well - adding flavor to the campaign and immersing the players in the world the Game Master has set out to create. This kind of GMPC often serves as a Non Action Guy in order to avoid stealing the spotlight from the players, or at least some form of Staff Chick. (passive GMPCs often end up in the 'healing' role)
However, it's all too easy to screw up the GMPC, especially since the Game Master also controls the game world and plot. Thus, the GMPC turns into a plot device to keep the players on track, stopping them from going Off The Rails. Even worse, the GM can take too much of a liking to his PC, and the character slowly but surely turns into a Mary Sue; defeating all the enemies singlehandedly, doing all the cool stuff, and gradually reducing the players to supporting roles.
This kind of GMPC quickly earns the ire of the players, since what's the point of even playing the game if all the DM's going to do is play with himself? They came to the gaming table to play as fantastic characters, crack some heads, and have fun; not sit and watch some Marty Stu kick werewolves through buses (And in the case of the Munchkin, he wants to be the one kicking the werewolves through buses). This may lead them to try to kill the offending character, which inevitably fails because of countermeasures including unstealable Rings of Invincibility and hostile allies getting struck by 10d100 lightning bolts. The Game Master may quickly find himself without a game if he doesn't get a clue.
It should be noted that any campaign setting that contains significant canon NP Cs (such as the Forgotten Realms) may fall victim to this if the GM insists on having them travel with the party. Just as bad is the habit of using them as a Deus Ex Machina to bail out the party when they screw up, especially if you set up the P Cs to fail on purpose.
Some games, on the other hand, require the Game Master to have a GMPC, usually a Non Action Guy with some kind of authority over the Player Characters.
There is a middle ground, a GMPC who behaves pretty much the same as most player characters, but you don't seem to hear much about them. Presumably because they don't make as exciting stories.
posted
Juxta, One thing you may want to consider is giving the goblins or some of the people that your PCs are helping some obvious distinguishing characteristics. This gives you the option to bring up connections to them later on in the adventure.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: That's not a guide. It's a collection of observations about the likely traits of GMPCs.
Which is different from a guide how?
Well for one thing a collection of observations merely observes cause and effect. A guide provides a systematic approach to accomplishing an objective. Tom is kinda being nit picky, but what you linked seems more of a "This is what I have seen as a player happen in games" as opposed to "If you are going to make a PC as a DM here are some things that will make it work.
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Specifically, it offers no advice on how to actually successfully implement a DMPC, or when such a PC would be a good idea. It merely points out the common pitfalls.
It is the difference between a list of landmarks and a guidebook.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Juxta, One thing you may want to consider is giving the goblins or some of the people that your PCs are helping some obvious distinguishing characteristics. This gives you the option to bring up connections to them later on in the adventure.
I did that with the goblin caster and the hobgoblin. I'm planning to tie them in with a larger force of goblins, so I gave them some distinctive tattoos/armor.
I haven't really been able to make the friendly NPCs distinctive yet, but I'm keeping a master list of all the characters, so I can reuse them later. Thanks for the idea. From now on, "identifying characteristic" is going to be one of the first things I decide on for a new character.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I tend to think of GMPCs mostly as a weakness of my earlier days of GMing. In a larger player group, one hopes that the players will moderate the more extreme behaviors of each others' characters; in a smaller one, ideally the GM knows the players well enough to anticipate and extrapolate.
Now, I did run some pretty good adventures with GMPCs, and I don't doubt they can be done well by a capable GM. But I do tend to think of them, for my personal style, as something of a crutch. I try not to have non-player characters- especially more powerful ones- stay with the party for very long. Unless they are themselves mercenaries hired by the party or the party's employer, it's perfectly reasonable that such characters would have their own agenda that precludes wandering about with the party for long periods of time.
I suspect it's good to occasionally ask oneself the hypothetical question: If this NPC were to suddenly, dramatically, and unrecoverably die, would the party fall apart? If the answer is "yes", is that a problem there's another way of addressing? And if "no", are they contributing to the game beyond making it more what I want it to be?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Which is different from a guide how?
Specifically, it offers no advice on how to actually successfully implement a DMPC, or when such a PC would be a good idea. It merely points out the common pitfalls.
It is the difference between a list of landmarks and a guidebook.
Which to me is a guide, same way you take a series of observations and come up with a theory and practical application of that theory, I take the originally observations and flesh them out, think on them, derive from them.
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So my party is now level 5. They've dealt with those pesky goblins, went on to expose a slaver's ring in a city, and are now in the midst of hunting a young blue dragon through a series of caves. It's all going quite well.
I have a small issue regarding a mechanic though (My game is 4e, btw). When you use an area spell, you select an origin square within range, from which the burst...bursts. One of my players wanted to use an origin square above the monsters' heads. Which is fine, except that I feel like it makes this type of aiming a bit overpowered. It removes, or severely limits concerns about line of sight/effect.
My idea to balance this capability is to say that it's much easier to have your fireball explode on this specific point on the ground/wall/ceiling than it is to have your fireball explode in a specific point in midair. Much harder to judge. So, drawing a line from the caster to the origin square, maybe the fireball bursts a square early on that line, or late, unintentionally changing the origin square, and possibly the targets.
First of all, does this sound like a reasonable balance?
Second, can you think of an elegant way to execute it? This is the part that's really giving me trouble.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
4th Edition Rules As Written (RAW) don't really allow for much in the way of three dimensional targeting, if I'm not mistaken. This gives you plenty of leeway to create house rules as you see fit; allowing your player to target above an enemy's head is essentially a house rule to begin with.
I think your solution is perfectly fine. But any application of it is going to be a little inelegant. Variables like that are fundamentally inelegant, which is why they don't exist much 3e and 4e RAW.
Another solution you could use would be to simply say it takes more energy to launch a spell into the air, and accordingly reduce the range of the spell. Every square "up" could count as two squares of normal range. Perhaps not a significant increase in range if he's just trying to lob a spell over a 5-foot high wall, but it would be much more significant if he's pushing the boundaries of the area of effect itself, and lobbing the spell, say, 2 or 3 or even 4 squares above the enemies' heads.
Maybe they're mostly using this to lob over 5-foot high walls? In which case, I dunno, scale back your use of that type of cover?
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Sounds like reasonable balance to me. There's a very reasonable justification (as you mention above).
If you're targeting a specific enemy, or a specific spot on the ground, there are clear markers you can judge by. If you're targeting an empty spot in the air, it's a lot more nebulous.
Mechanics suggestion: roll 1d4: 1: shot is low by 1 square 2: shot is high by 1 square 3: shot is on the right level but off horizontally (see below) 4: direct hit
if you rolled a 3, now roll a d8 for standard horizontal direction spread.
Now, if your player argues that he's targeting the head of a large, huge or gargantuan monster, that elevated target square may technically be still targeting the monster (and thus shouldn't be penalized).
Additionally, you may want to adjust the d4 roll above to make it more skewed to hitting as intended (i.e. make it a d6 and 4-6 are hits...)
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
New suggestion: If you want to use a form of miss chance, get a Warhammer scatter die. Quicker and simpler than just about any other alternative.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I think what I'm going to do is take your 1d4 idea, but with 2 chances to hit. I'd like to avoid having to roll 2 different dice for one mechanic, if possible.
Dan, You've given me ideas regarding mortar-style powers.
ETA: I'd never heard of scatter dice before. Thanks.
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posted
Sounds pretty similar to splash weapon adjudication in 3.5, which does require an extra die roll.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I'm sure other games/editions have come up with better solutions in the past. This is where my relatively short history as a RPGer holds me back.
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